Where the Sunflowers Grow Ch. 3

Chapter Three
A Perfect Hook-Up

There he was. Algebra Buddy sat across from Rachel, ignoring her completely. His broad shoulders faced the teacher's board and he eyes kept focus on the teacher's movement. He was doing anything to not have to interact with or look at her. Rachel forced herself to not look at him either, although it was quite difficult.
He was not amazing looking. It wasn't that at all. It was his radiant personality that made it almost impossible not to pay attention to him. His mysterious aura infatuated Rachel. She wanted him, although she knew she couldn't have him. Not only did he have a girlfriend, but Rachel was way too obvious about her feelings for him, and she scared him off. She felt pathetic.
Rachel glimpsed over at him quickly just to see if he was looking at her from the corner of his eye. He wasn't. There was forty-five minutes of sixth hour until the bus ride home. Rachel waited impatiently.
The teacher was now explaining their math homework. When the math homework had been passed out to everyone in the room, Rachel stared at it blankly. What was this? She probably should have paid more attention to the lesson lecture, but Rachel hated algebra. She didn't understand even the basic concept, and how could she? It was way too complicated. She started to draw flowers on her math worksheet. She drew a long stem, a large middle, and pointy petals. In no time at all she had drawn a simple sunflower. Perfect. After a while of doodling, she got bored and looked at the clock that sat upon the TV in the corner of the classroom. Finally, there was only one minute left of class. The minute seemed to last forever. When the numbers flashed 2:30, Rachel immediately stood up.
“Excuse me, but Rachel, what are you doing?” The teacher, whom everyone nicknamed, Mrs. Rodent, inquired. Mrs. Rodent resembled an overweight guinea pig. She had a long nose with pursed lips. Her dark brown eyes were small and alert. She seemed to see everything that happened in the classroom, whether it was a note being passed or a kid in the back of the room scratching a bad word into his desk with a paper clip. Also, her teeth were incredibly small and every time she talked, no one could help but to stare at her mouth. Rachel didn't like her. It was not because of her appalling physical appearance, but it was her snooty attitude that annoyed Rachel the most.
“I'm sorry. I thought it was time to go.”
“I run this show around here. When I say it's time to go, it'll be time to go. But until then, everyone goes by my time. You've just earned yourself two extra minutes after class.”
“But I'll miss my bus,” Rachel tried to reason with her teacher.
“Don't argue with me Miss. Rewolf otherwise it'll be three minutes!” Almost in an evil manner, Mrs. Rodent squinted her eyes, and waited for Rachel to say something back.
“Okay, okay.” Rachel took her seat and stared straight ahead. She was not only anxious to get out of sixth hour, but now she was going to have to rush in order to make the bus. Rachel listened to her teacher talk about “respecting your elders” for the next minute. Then, she dismissed the class. Rachel had to stay for two minutes longer, and the whole time she imagined what it would be like for her to be the teacher and Mrs. Rodent to be the student. It would be quite fun. Rachel would punish her rodent-like student by making her sit hours after school every day. She would set the school clocks a half an hour behind just to make the student suffer longer. Finally, Rachel's two minutes were over.
“I hope you have taken something out of this punishment,” Mrs. Rodent said.
“I have,” Rachel lied through her teeth. She almost couldn't say the words. It felt like admitting defeat, but she knew she had to otherwise the bus would leave without her. She grabbed her books and binders and dashed to her locker.
By the time she left North Wood, the buses were starting to move. She ran as quickly as she could to hers and got on just in time. The only seat open was one next to Blonde Boy. Jenny was on too, although she was in the seat in front of him. Jenny had always been so shy around guys; Rachel never understood why. Rachel was normally so outgoing and couldn't stop talking when she saw a guy that she was interested in. Being shy would be like flying—impossible.
Rachel made her way to Blonde Boy. When he saw her, he smiled his cute, innocent, dimple-showing smile. Rachel returned the friendly gesture with a small smile of her own.
“Hey,” he greeted her.
“Oh hey,” Rachel said and took a seat next to him. She put her backpack on her lap and looked over at him. “What's up?”
“Nothing much.”
“Yeah, same here,” Rachel said. Then as if she had forgotten and then remembered, she exclaimed, “I want you to meet Jenny!”
As if practiced, Jenny turned around in the seat in front of them. “Hi, I'm Jenny.”
“Hey, I'm Jake. Rachel mentioned you,” Blonde Boy said pleasantly. Jenny grinned, interested right away. Rachel saw an immediate attraction between Jenny and Blonde Boy, but she wasn’t so sure that he felt the same way about her. There wasn’t as strong of a connection on Blonde Boy's end.
“Really? Rachel mentioned you too.”
“Cool.”
“Yeah.” Jenny couldn't stop smiling. Rachel felt the need to nudge her, but from where she was sitting, it wouldn't work out right. The conversation was staring to end so Rachel realized that she needed to put forward some effort.
“So, Jake is into soccer.”
“Oh really?” Jenny asked, amused.
“Yeah, I'm going to try out for North Wood's team.”
“That sounds great. I'm sure you'll make it.”
“I hope so,” Blonde Boy told her.
There just wasn't much more to talk about. I mean soccer was just soccer. No one could talk about if for hours. Rachel had always thought that soccer was an uninteresting sport. The point of the game was to kick a ball back and forth, trying to get it into a goal. So simple. So boring.
“Oh that's cool.”
“Yeah, I was on the team last year. It's so much fun and it's a great way to meet new people. You're new here, right?” Jenny asked.
“Yeah, I'm new. I'm from Oxford.”
“Were you on the soccer team there?”
“Yeah, freshmen year and sophomore year.”
“That's great,” Jenny was impressed. While Jenny and Blonde Boy continued their amazingly boring conversation about high school soccer, Rachel drifted off into another one of her fantasies. She imagined Blonde Boy having a twin brother who had a totally different personality than he did. Twin would be more sarcastic and forward. He would have less of an innocent smile and more of a mischievous grin. His eyes would glint rather than twinkle. Twin and Rachel would meet and instantaneously fall in love. Then, Rachel, Twin, Jenny, and Blonde Boy could all go double dating together. They would go to the movies to see a scary movie. While Jenny and Blonde Boy would be holding hands, Rachel and Twin would be on top of each other. Twin would be holding her, comforting her, never letting her go.
“See-ya later Rachel!” Jenny interrupted Rachel's fantasy.
“Later,” Rachel snapped out of it and waved good-bye to her friend as she happily left the bus. The conversation must have gone well between the two.
“What do you think of Jenny?” Rachel asked Blonde Boy.
“She's fine.”
“What do you mean, ‘fine’?” Rachel was shocked at Blonde Boy's answer. Fine meant okay, all right, not great. Fine was like getting a C on a test. Average, nothing to be proud of.
“She seems really nice,” he tried to answer differently, but Rachel still had the same reaction. Nice wasn't a good way of describing someone in Rachel's book. The word 'nice' could be describing a grandmother. For someone that might be a possibility in dating terms, nice was not a good word to use. It would almost reach the extent of bad.
“I mean, not to be too forward, but don't you feel anything with her?” Rachel pushed.
“I'm not sure,” Blonde Boy blushed.
“Oh well, only time can tell.”
“I guess so.”
“I'm guessing so too.”
When Rachel finally got home, she plopped on the couch and closed her eyes. She relaxed and let every event of the day sink in. She thought of Algebra Buddy. They were over. If she thought any more about it, her head would explode, so she decided to stop. She then moved onto Blonde Boy. He was so weird. What was wrong with him? Rachel couldn't understand the meaning of his response to her question. Was he even interested in Jenny?
Rachel eventually got so upset because of her never-ending thoughts that she decided to go to the Empty Place. As soon as she got there she laid on the grass and cleared her mind. No longer was her mind bubbling with nervous thoughts of relationships. She had calmed down.
Her face was leaned up towards the sky and she smiled to herself. It was beautiful, the sky. White puffy clouds danced amongst the bright blue atmosphere. The sun was still high above her, and she tried to not look directly into its fire covered face. Birds flew, chirping a harmonic language unknown to mankind, and the fallen leaves of the trees swarmed around her with a blow of the winds.
This is how she imagined Heaven to be, if there was one. Golden gates would be the entrance, and a trial of daisies would lead to this magnificent sight. And then there would be Rachel walking elegantly into the scene. She would be wearing a gown fit for a princess. Maybe she was a princess. But where would her prince be? Could she not find him? Could she not find her one true love? Her prince?
Rachel stood up suddenly. She could not get her mind off of boys. Every single thought led to one with boys. They were always involved. Why couldn't she be more like Debbie? Why couldn't she just not care? Rachel wasn't sure she could handle that. Or maybe she could be more like Cathy. Cathy had a boyfriend. She hadn't been too forward or too outgoing or too talkative. She had just been attracted to him as a person, and he had been attracted to her. Rachel knew that it couldn’t be that easy for her. Cathy had much luckier than Rachel when it came to boys. What about being more like Jenny? What if she just waited until someone else fixed her up with a boy? Ha! That made Rachel laugh.
Who was she kidding? Rachel was a huntress and her prey was the male species. Rachel was just Rachel. She was as simple as soccer and as complicated as algebra. The simple fact of it all was that she wouldn't change, but the complicated part of the matter were the reasons why. Rachel didn't even try to explain the reasons. For once, she just left it simple.